Why Memes Suck

The memes started almost instantly after the Titan submersible went missing a week ago today. A third of my traditional social media feed (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) was suddenly flooded with memes of game pad controllers, suffocating millionaires, and cheaply made subs. When the news finally broke this past Thursday that all aboard the sub had actually died a couple of hours into the voyage, the memes stopped. But those who had posted them refused to take them down, saying they coped with tragedy by using humor. But as a guy who almost drowned twice as a kid, I didn’t find any of it funny. To me it was ghastly, especially since the Titanic geek in me felt those people were up against great odds the minute the submersible lost contact with the surface. By early Thursday morning, when the disrespect for the dead was at an all time high, I almost pulled the plug on my Facebook. I couldn’t take anymore and I started to wonder why, out of all the online communities I’ve been a part of since getting my first computer in 1999, was OpenDiary the one place that felt organic and warm? And it boils down to the absence of memes here. The diarists on this site don’t feel the need to use somebody else’s words and pictures to communicate. They use their own. Their feelings are real. Their compassion is real. It’s not an echo of somebody else’s thought.

Look, I won’t deny that these last few Covid years haven’t had an effect on me. I’ve become a less patient man in general and that has seeped into how I feel about online culture as well. And, certainly, the overnight vampire hours I work don’t help matters much. But, in my defense, I’ve also seen the worst of people during all of this. I watched as one of my closest childhood friends fell deeper and deeper into the post-Trump 2016 campaign conspiracy well and die because of it. He would post meme after meme of how Biden and Bill Gates were trying to take control of the country through vaccinations. Then, at the start of the Omicron variant, he collapsed on the floor and died, his heart and lungs trying to desperately provide the most basic of functions. Meme disinformation killed my friend and his family steadfastly denied it was Covid related even when they were told otherwise in the wake of his death. This is shit meme-adoring people don’t think about. “Well, this is how I feel,” they will say.  But is the information you’re passing correct? Is it morally right? Did you really think about it before you hit the “post” button? Did you even think about the repercussions? Did you even think?

So this is why I’m against memes and why I’m back here on OD after another long absence–to not only bitch and moan, but to also feel, think and empathize in a real community again. I can’t promise how regular I’ll be with my entries this time around because of my weird vampire hours at work, but I can promise more thought here than your standard meme. Memes suck and I refuse to post them.